Island Company to Perform at 2017 World Expo in Kazakhstan

Newport’s resident dance company, Island Moving Company has been honored with an invitation to represent the United States in performances at the 2017 World Expo in Astana, Kazakhstan to embody the American ideal of “Energy.”

The invitation, from United States Ambassador to Kazakhstan George Krol, came after last year’s cultural exchange with Samruk Dance in Almaty, Kazakhstan. “When our embassy team considered American dance companies to invite to Astana that would embody the Expo’s theme of Future Energy,” said Ambassador Krol, “I immediately thought of Island Moving Company. IMC impressed their Kazakhstani audiences with their talent, boundless energy and their openness to connecting American and Kazakhstani cultures when they visited Astana last year. And, as a resident of the Newport area, I also feel a special bond to a “hometown” troupe.” IMC will travel to Kazakhstan on August 2nd.

IMC opens its tour to Kazakhstan with a performance in Almaty on a program with Samruk Dance on August 9th. Traveling to the Expo in the capital Astana the next day, the Company will perform in the newly constructed Energy Hall as well as at an outdoor amphitheatre in the Expo grounds. The Company will return to the United States on August 14th.

Samruk and the IMC will perform a mixed bill on each program, culminating with a joint performance of Miki Ohlsen’s Energia Continua, especially choreographed for the World Expo. The piece includes an animated film projection created by Newport artist Robert Kieronski. The tour will include additional pop-up performances and informal interactions with international and Kazakhstani visitors at the World Expo.

The Company is seeking tax deductible donations of cash, AMEX points or Delta SkyMiles to cover international airline costs. Funds have been raised to cover salaries, per diems and in-country travel, but the cost of 9 overseas airfares remains to be raised. The Company appreciates the help of patrons in making this historic journey possible. If you can help, please contact Charles Kehres at 401 847-4470 orCharles@islandmovingco.org. Follow Island Moving Company on Instagram and Twitter @islandmovingco, facebook @islandmovingcompany and check the website for further news about Island Moving Company’s appearances on the World Expo stage.

Island Moving Company presents its Great Friends Dance Festival July 19-23 at the Great Friends Meeting House at 30 Marlborough Street in Newport. Guest companies include residency company Missouri Contemporary Ballet, as well as Matthew Westerby Company, Trainor Dance and choreographer Attila Joey Csiki from New York, Staycee Pearl dance project from Pittsburgh, Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, Boston’s Kat Nasti Dance and Breathing Art Company from Bari, Italy. Tickets and details of each evening’s unique program are available at www.islandmovingco.org.

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Charles van der Leeuw, writer, news analyst, was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1952. He started working as an independent reporter on cultural issues in a wide variety of publications back in 1977. Ten years later, he settled down in war-torn Beirut as an international war correspondent, following a first experience in Iraq in 1985, which resulted in his first book on the Iraq-Iran war. After his kidnapping and release in 1989, his second book “Lebanon – the injured innocence” came out, followed, in early 1992, by “Kuwait burns”. Later in the year, he settled down in Baku, Azerbaijan, as a war correspondent. “Storm over the Caucasus” on the southern Caucasus geopolitical conflicts came out in 1997 in the Dutch language and two years later in the first English edition. It was followed by “Azerbaijan – a quest for identity” and “Oil and gas in the Caucasus and Caspian – a history”, both published in 2000, and “Black & Blue” published in Almaty in summer 2003 about the stormy rise of Russia’s present-day oil and gas companies.
In 2012, he published a bipartite book about the histories of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. His latest publication before this work was “Cold War II: cries in the desert – or how to counterbalance NATO’s propaganda from Ukraine to Central Asia”, published by Herfordshire Press, England, along with books similar to this one on Kyrgyzstan, published in English, French and German editions.